The University of Michigan football team consistently has violated NCAA rules governing off-season workouts, in-season demands on players and mandatory summer activities under coach Rich Rodriguez, numerous players told the Free Press.

I don’t know how big a deal this is, to tell you the truth (Chris Brown does a nice job breaking that down, if you’re interested), and Rodriguez denies the charges, but at a minimum, Michigan is going to have to deal with an internal look at this which may in turn lead to an NCAA investigation and Rodriguez continues to deal with players who have issues with his coaching style. Neither of which sounds like a particularly good thing, especially when you’re coming off of a 3-9 season.

Plus, if it turns out that NCAA guidelines were violated, it’ll be hard to characterize Rich Rod as anything other than a blatant liar (unless he’s got some serious plausible deniability built into whatever went on, in which case he’ll merely make himself and the school look foolish).

Bottom line – it’s hard to argue with this:

A final thought: Going into this year, I thought the people who claimed that Rich Rodriguez was already on the hotseat in just his second year at UM were crazy. Now, I am not so sure. He better win some games.

Like this:

6 responses to “More hot seat talk”

I thought the Rodriguez hire was very odd for Michigan from the start. Hiring him had to be risky for whoever made the decision at UM – he coaches and runs a system that is anti-UM traditionally, a system that did not fit the talents available on the current UM roster when he was hired, and Rodriguez did not appear to have any particular ‘in’ for recruiting in the area. Now, if it turns out that he also lies and cheats, whoever hired him should be worried about his/her job, imo.

I thought this was an odd hire at the start. You had to give him a couple of years due to his system and the players they had (and lost), but with all of the negative press coming from there, his seat is definitely warming up. I think he’s gone during or after next season.

Did you read the part that the players did not want to be named because of the repercussion from the coaches part?

Makes me wonder if these whistle blowers are not trying to retaliate to what they perceive as something that is completely wrong with Rich Rodriguiz’s ethics. I could be reading too much into this but a person who completely blows this kinda whistle is really jaded about something.

I think the bigger (much bigger) part of this story is the player disgruntlement. I suspect the workout stuff blows over fairly quickly, as I doubt Michigan is doing anything differently from the rest of the big-time programs.

But there’s been a steady drip of negative news surrounding RR almost from the very first day he arrived in Ann Arbor. He needs to start winning big sooner rather than later to counter that.